I was a former senior manager at KPMG and since 1994 the owner of the Marks Group PC, a 10 person customer relationship management consulting firm based outside Philadelphia. I've written six small-business management books, most recently "The Manufacturer's Book of List" and “In God We Trust, Everyone Else Pays Cash: Simple Lessons From Smart Business People.” Besides Forbes, I daily for The Washington Post and weekly for Inc. Magazine, Entrepreneur Magazine and the Huffington Post monthly for Philadelphia Magazine. I am an unpaid contributor to Forbes. I make no compensation from the number of people who read what I write here. Follow me on Google Plus, Twitter, Facebook, and Linked In.

I’m not. This is like the beginning of the end of the Roman Empire. And the beginning of technology’s dark ages. At least for many small businesses like mine.

Lots of reasons are given for the acquisition. Most experts believe that it’s motivated by certain patents that Motorola owns which will help Google defend itself against infringement lawsuits brought on by Apple.

ZDNet’s Jason Hiner agrees, but also offers this reason: “…it’s pretty clear that Google also wants to have the option of producing its own hardware devices so that it can build prototypes, concept hardware, and leading edge devices to demonstrate its vision and point its ecosystem partners in the right direction. With Apple’s continued success in mobile, BlackBerry’s large (albeit fading) market share, HP’s new hardware/software unification with WebOS, and now the Google-Motorola deal, it’s becoming clear that vertical integration is winning in mobile. Going forward, look for the latest, greatest, high-end devices to all be vertically integrated, while many of the low-cost, copy-cat devices will come to the market later and be made by mass market manufacturers like Samsung.”

This is all great for Google. But will this news help my small business? Unfortunately, no. The empire is breaking up. Chaos is approaching. Life, particularly for my business, is about to become more complicated.

Post Your Comment

Post Your Reply

Forbes writers have the ability to call out member comments they find particularly interesting. Called-out comments are highlighted across the Forbes network. You'll be notified if your comment is called out.

No they can’t. There are some tools that help with “some” Windows programs running on Mac, but Macs can’t do that out of the box. And their are some programs that have both Windows and Mac versions. But it is not an automatic compatibility. What Kool-Aid have you been drinking?

You seemed to have forgotten that Android is an open-source platform, while the others are proprietary. The core of the problem is when manufacturers and developers are not willing to share information with each other.

This article is written by a business major, perhaps a MBA, who knows very little about computer programming. Many of the algorithms upon which these operating systems are built are the same. If you want real interchangability go open source. Support open source software and standards. Refuse to purchase undocumented unexplained proprietary products.

The article makes a good argument for better education concerning computer technology in business schools.

Your arguments sound like those of Cuban citizens in Cuba that defend having Fidel Castro as their dictator, simply because they do no know any better. Android, is open source….. If you want stability and choices, this is it.

Interesting analogy. You did get one thing right, the future may be very much like the dark ages, of course, in the dark ages algebra was discovered, science was beginning, there was a golden age, a renaissance, universities were born, etc. You see, the term Dark Ages, was created in the 1300s in reference to the decline in latin literature. So the author’s analogy is terrible. As are his arguments. There’s just as much reason to believe that the increase in competition in the OS market will only benefit the consumer. The author wholly ignores the very likely scenario that all software is moving toward being web-based, in which case your OS will be irrelevant. In fact this is the very REASON that iOS and android have been able to flourish, because things have become so web-based. I am actually angry I read this article. It seems like the author put zero time or effort into this post above and beyond the amount of time it took him to type out this worthless drivel.

Hey! Times change. Nothing stays the same forever. Learn to adjust for the changing times. I’m sure the mainframe and terminal manufacturers were griping when the Windows PC first came on the scene. No matter what happens in the future, there are always going to be people complaining they got the short end of the stick. No one is saying that Microsoft will buy out some company to make their own software/hardware platform. You’re just worrying unneedlessly.

Still it’s amazing that there are people that believe Microsoft and Windows will never go away during their lifetime. It seems selfish that the whole industry has to come to a standstill waiting for Microsoft to make some new move. Apple is making the move and many consumers are happy about it. Let everyone have a turn at glory. Windows isn’t going away overnight and may still be around for many years.

Sorry that there are unexpected changes in life for you, but these things happen from time to time. The village blacksmith must have had a tough time when automobiles came on the scene. Same for the telegram people after phones became commonplace. Job shifts happen all the time as new methods take over. Please understand that you’re not the center of the universe and changes can’t stop because you’re going to be somewhat inconvenienced. If you’re wise enough to see the changes coming, get prepared ahead of time and go with the flow. The worse thing you can do is fear change or else the world will pass you by.

When I stop to think about it, the centralized mainframe wasn’t such a bad idea. A nice big repository where everything was kept in order for everyone. It’s a wonder the individualized Windows PCs ever managed to take over.

Gene Marks you are living in the Stone Age of computer software development. Just as the desktop is being simplified more and more so it software development. Your operating system is quickly becoming irrelevant . Applications are now being built to run on the web through your browser.

With the advent of HTML5 and CSS3 combined with some very powerful JavaScript libraries developers are now able to build fully interactive, cross-browser (and cross operating system) compatible applications with minimal effort put into compatibility.

Just look at what Amazon and other publishers did after Apple tried to strangle them with a 30% sales fee. They moved their content purchasing and reading apps to the web. We will be seeing more and more of this as developers continue to want to bypass the gatekeepers of old and release new versions of their products quicker and with far less restraints.

On top of all of that, most mobile and tablet apps these days are originally built in HTML5 and CSS3 and then use a converting utility to make them compatible with Apple’s IOS, Windows Mobile, Android, and Blackberry.

In short Gene Marks, you don’t know what your talking about. Go back to writing things you understand and actually follow closely enough to write accurately about. You have no business writing about the software field. Maybe 10 years ago you did, but not anymore.

“But in the future will I be forced to only purchase hardware manufactured by Apple because I run Apple applications?”

Why do you ask if this will happen “in the future”?

Except for a brief period in the 1990′s, Apple has never licensed its computer operating system to any other manufacturer.

Other than the failed experiment with licensing Mac clones (similar to what Microsoft does with its Windows OS), Apple has always “forced” (really it was a choice!) consumers to by an Apple computer to run Apple’s Mac OS and Mac software.

This is nothing new.

Apple’s vertical integration was viewed as a weakness by others in the early years, but over the past ten years this strategy has proven to be Apple’s strength.